The Regions - American Repertory Theatre

We continue our series of visits to the web sites of major regional theatres. This week:

American Repertory Theatre

Founded by then and current artistic director, playwright-director-critic-teacher Robert Brustein, in 1980, the American Repertory Theatre (A.R.T.) is both a professional resident repertory theatre company and theatre training school. The theatre has been home to productions ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous, featuring world-premieres and productions by everyone from Feiffer to Fo, Mamet to Miller, DeLillo and Durang to Shakespeare and Shaw. Their productions have been seen all over the world, and two premiere's have received Pulitzer Prizes. A.R.T. received the 1986 special Tony for regional theatre. It is situated on the Harvard University campus and makes use of two spaces: the Loeb Drama Center (a reconfigurable space, utilized as either proscenium or thrust), and the 350-seat Hasty Pudding Theatre.

A.R.T.'s diverse 1999-2000 season begins September 10th and runs through June 11th. It features Dario Fo's We Won't Pay! We Won't Pay! in a new adaptation starring Marisa Tomei, Joe Orton's Loot, The Idiots Karamazov by Christopher Durang and Albert Innaurato, Chekov's Ivanov, and Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, among others.

The American Repertory Theatre website is one very linked site. It should appear as an example in the dictionary under the definition of "hyperlink." For example, when you check a cast member's bio (to which you'll find links from the pages about the different productions the actor is involved with as well as from publicity pages and the biography page), you'll find links to short histories of the theatres listed in the actor's credits or links to external sites belonging to those theatres. The site also makes use of a large number of graphics which, although they are slow to load, add a great deal to the attractive look of the site. There's a lot of helpful duplication of navigation points, with a "Where to?" menu that appears on most (if not all) pages. You'll find lists and lists and lists of cast members, staff members, contributors, and more -- all of course with links to biographies. Not only to they offer ticket purchases online, but they discount the price for online purchase. They use the TicketsLive service that a number of theatres are now using (several weeks ago I inadvertently credited their interface to Arena Stage), which is a great and easy way to purchase tickets, but is unfortunately not secure, so your credit card information is passing along the Internet unencrypted.

A.R.T. also maintains a mailing list to keep the public appraised of new productions, publicity, and media stories. You can subscribe through their "Contact" page, or by sending the message "subscribe art-list"

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